1924 Nobel Prize in Literature
Wladyslaw Reymont
"for his great national epic, The Peasants"
Date
  • November 1924 (announcement)
  • 10 December 1924
    (ceremony)
LocationStockholm, Sweden
Presented bySwedish Academy
First awarded1901
WebsiteOfficial website

The 1924 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Polish author Wladyslaw Reymont "for his great national epic, The Peasants".[1]

Laureate

Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont (1867-1925) wrote novels and short stories that was strongly influenced by naturalism. He is best known for Chłopi (1904-1909, The Peasants), a novel in four volumes that chronicles peasant life in Poland during the four seasons of the year, for which he specifically was awarded the Nobel prize. An earlier success was the novel Ziemia obiecana (The Promised Land, 1899).[2]

Nominations

Wladislaw Reymont was first nominated in 1919 by the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. It was followed in 1920, 1922 and 1924 wherein he was recommended by Nobel Committee members.[3] In total, the Committee received 22 nominations for 18 authors which included Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Guglielmo Ferrero (who earned the three nominations - the highest), Thomas Hardy, Paul Ernst, Stefan Żeromski, Roberto Bracco, Paul Sabatier, George Bernard Shaw (awarded in 1925), . Three of the nominees were newly nominated: Thomas Mann (awarded in 1929), Max Neuburger and Olav Duun. There were two female nominees namely the Italian novelists Grazia Deledda (awarded in 1926) and Matilde Serao.[4]

The authors Marie-Louise-Félicité Angers (known as Laure Conan), Valery Bryusov, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Joseph Conrad, Jacob Israël de Haan, Herman Heijermans, Franz Kafka, Arnold H. S. Landor, Laura Jean Libbey, Lin Shu, Mary Mackay (known as Marie Corelli), Paul Milliet, Edith Nesbit and Gene Stratton-Porter died in 1924 without having been nominated.

Official list of nominees and their nominators for the prize
No. Nominee Country Genre(s) Nominator(s)
1 Roberto Bracco (1861–1943)  Italy drama, screenplay
2 Grazia Deledda (1871–1936)  Italy novel, short story, essays Carl Bildt (1850–1931)
3 Olav Duun (1876–1939)  Norway novel, short story Oscar Albert Johnsen (1876–1954)
4 Paul Ernst (1866–1933)  Germany novel, short story, drama, essays Professors[lower-alpha 1]
5 Guglielmo Ferrero (1871–1942)  Italy history, essays, novel
6 Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)  United Kingdom novel, short story, poetry, drama Robert Eugen Zachrisson (1880–1937)
7 Arno Holz (1863–1929)  Germany poetry, drama, essays Eugen Wolf (1850–1912)
8 Einar Hjörleifsson Kvaran (1859–1938)  Iceland novel, poetry, drama, essays Valtýr Guðmundsson (1860–1928)
9 Thomas Mann (1875–1955)  Germany novel, short story, drama, essays Gerhart Hauptmann (1862–1946)
10 Max Neuburger (1868–1955)  Austria history, essays Adolf Fonahn (1873–1940)
11 Władysław Reymont (1867–1925)  Poland novel, short story Anders Österling (1884–1981)
12 Paul Sabatier (1858–1928)  France history, theology, biography Carl Bildt (1850–1931)
13 Matilde Serao (1856–1927)  Italy novel, essays Francesco Torraca (1853–1938)
14 George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)  Ireland drama, essays, novel Tor Hedberg (1862–1931)
15 Hermann Türck (1856–1933)  Germany essays, biography
16 Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929)  Austria novel, poetry, drama, essays Walther Brecht (1876–1950)
17 Ludwig von Pastor (1854–1928)  Germany history Olof Kolsrud (1885–1945)
18 Stefan Żeromski (1864–1925)  Poland novel, drama, short story Richard Ekblom (1874–1959)

Notes

  1. ↑ Paul Ernst was nominated by professors from Munich, Berlin, Chemnitz and Bonn in Germany, as well as Zürich, Switzerland, and Budapest, Hungary.

Presentation

As no official award ceremony took place, Per Hallström, chairman of the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy, wrote a critical essay on Reymont in lieu of a presentation speech. In it he concluded:

To sum up, this epic novel is characterized by an art so grand, so sure, so powerful, that we may predict a lasting value and rank for it, not only within Polish literature but also within the whole of that branch of imaginative writing which has here been given a distinctive and monumental shape.[5]

References

  1. ↑ The Nobel Prize in Literature 1924 nobelprize.org
  2. ↑ "Wladislaw Stanislaw Reymont". britannica.com.
  3. ↑ "Nomination archive - Wladislaw S Reymont". nobelprize.org.
  4. ↑ "Nomination archive - Literature 1924". nobelprize.org.
  5. ↑ "Presentation". nobelprize.org.
  • Presentation A critical essay by Per Hallström, chairman of the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.